Alice always knew she was different. As cliché as it sounds, it was not an exaggeration.

While she was still growing in her mother's belly, Mrs. Jones wished—prayed that Alice would at least not be like her brother. Mrs. Jones wanted a daughter who was intelligent but at least not have a genius level IQ like her first child, Zack who managed to build a full functioning robot at age 4 and liked inventing gadgets and gizmos, and dismantling and assembling household appliances that sometimes malfunctioned. Not that she was proud, she was extremely pleased to have a genius for a son, but kids Zack's age were still learning how to spell their names while Zack was already adding adjustments to their computer and designing blueprints for inventions and ideas that Mr. Jones loved boasting about. He made a friend though from their neighbor's kid. Stephen was interested in science as well, wanting to be an astronaut when he grows up. Mrs. Jones was just happy that he had someone to talk to and play tag with instead of making explosions at the garage every five minutes.

Mrs. Jones had high hopes for her daughter to be extra ordinary smart instead of extraordinary genius with 160 IQ. Unfortunately….those prayers won't be answered.

Nothing was wrong for the first few months of Alice's life. Then Mrs. Jones started noticing strange things happening to Alice. Just 9 months old and her mother found her at the top cupboard. Mrs. Jones guessed that Zack did it as a prank and grounded him for a week, suspending his garage rights. Next, the house started shaking. They thought it was an earthquake but when they got outside, it seemed to be that their house was the only one that was affected. The neighbors haven't felt a thing. Mrs. Jones thought that she was going crazy. Fortunately, it stopped there. But Mrs. Jones witnessed something even more terrifying after all of the unexplainable things that happened to Alice. Mrs. Jones worse fear arrived. Alice was now looking at her brother's chemistry set with interest.

At 11 months, she was displaying intelligence that were way beyond infants her age. Even Zack didn't understand chess when he was 11 months old. She didn't like any of the toys that her mother bought her and instead she was eyeing the chemistry set like it was the most interesting thing in the universe. Alice even started opening her father's books!

Finally, Mr. Jones took her to a facility to test out her IQ and learned that it was exceeding the normal standard for infants. Mr. Jones was proud again for having another genius in the family. Mrs. Jones was happy and at the same time dejected. But she hoped for the best. Growing up, Alice was an isolated little girl, constantly bored by the world around her; scowling at the playmates her mother brought her, stealing her brother's chemistry set, observing the components for acid and bleach and other household materials, blowing stuff up like her brother, drugging Zack once all because she wanted to see the effect it had on the human body, and bringing dead body parts, organs, rats and animals at home which scared her brother and father and deeply appalled her mother. She could speak Spanish after watching a telenovela. She could recognize 12 languages by the age of two. And after that, she began doing algebra. Alice read her brother's books on Physics and Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Biochemistry, instead of the fairy tales of Sleeping Beauty and Snow White. She ripped those books to pieces. Mrs. Jones wished for a daughter who was less smart than Zack instead she gave birth to one who was even more intelligent, more perceptive, cunning and very, very resourceful than Zack, something Zack disliked. Still Mrs. Jones loved her daughter even though she told one of her co-workers at the hospital that she was sleeping with one of the patients. Alice was only eight that time. Marge—her co-worker—was now divorced, miserable and cursing Alice every time she saw her at the hospital where Mrs. Jones worked.

Alice should have attended college when she was 7. but her mother insisted that she at least had to go through high school. she eventually graduated high school without a ceremony, Mrs. Jones was upset. She really wanted her daughter to experience a normal graduation ceremony, have friends that were her age—have friends at all—develop crushes and not saying statements like "Humans are pathetic," and "Everyone is an idiot," She was grounded for 3 months when Mrs. Jones heard her say that.

They moved to Noting Hill, her hometown when Mr. Jones accepted the job offer to teach and do research at a university. Zack was left behind since he was already in his fourth year of college at MIT. Just a week from settling in, they were visited by a stranger who highly resembled that of an overgrown bat, telling them that magic exists and that their daughter was a witch. Alice was now different to a whole new level. She didn't accept it very well though, freezing up when Snape transfigured Mr. Jones into a newt. Her world of science was shattered. She needed time to rebuild it again, allowing space inside her mind to accept that everything was now possible and that she could now break the every law of science, biology, and physics. She wouldn't be bored for years to come.

Mrs. Jones didn't care if her daughter was a witch. When she heard the idea of a school for wizards and witches, it didn't matter if magic existed or not, as long as Alice was given a chance to go to school again, make friends, and experience normal things that kids go through, magical or not. Mrs. Jones figured that even if the children were magical. Children are children, no matter which continent you live. Learning that there was little chance that she was allowed to skip a grade or two made it even better. Mrs. Jones was more excited than her daughter at the mention of Hogwarts. Maybe Alice could make a fresh start, maybe the wizard children will think that her perception, and ability to see things no normal child could do would be considered magic, and maybe Alice will change her mind about the magical children because they would be much different than the non-magical ones she's had the displeasure of meeting.

Throughout the course of the summer, Alice was holed up in her room, spending her time reading the books for the first week. She began making notes; she even managed to steal her wand from her mother and began practicing some spells even though it was illegal for her to perform underage magic. Fortunately, there was no complaint. Alice now rarely ate, and she didn't sleep for five days once. Mrs. Jones has had it.

Mrs. Jones practically destroyed the doorknob. Alice's room was dark and cold, Black, thick sheets hang on the windows. The only sources of light were two electric lamps. Her room remained messy; books scattered around the floor, packages of junkfood and soda cans as well, there were papers pinned on the walls, words in sloppy handwriting. On her shelves, laid several jars of body parts and animals, there was a jar of eyeballs, a heart, several toes and thumbs, the hamster that she nicked from a pet shop and poisoned, there were rats as well in those jars. There were plenty of them on her shelves.

On her study desk was the skull of the Sammy the Rabbit. Alice was sprawled on the floor with Somali sleeping on her back, surrounded by garbage and piles of books and papers and a lamp, illuminating her unruly hair. Her face was buried onto the book she was supposed to be reading. She was out cold. Mrs. Jones heaved an exasperated sigh and reminded herself that she loved her daughter very much even though she was a blob at the moment. Mrs. Jones took down the black curtains, letting the nice and warm sunshine in, lighting up the whole room. She heard a shriek from her daughter and then a loud hiss from Somali, "MOM! THE LIGHT, IT BURNS!" she said in a croaky voice. Alice crawled towards her bed, attempting to hide under it like Somali.

Mrs. Jones, hands on her hips, shook her head as she looked at Alice crawling like that woman from that Japanese horror movie she saw one time. Alice hid under the bed, hissing at her mother.

"I have never seen a room so dirty, young lady!" Mrs. Jones scolded; she tried her best to keep her voice leveled and calm. She forcefully pulled her daughter from under the bed, ignoring her whines and moans. "YOU HAVENT EATEN IN DAYS. YOU'VE BEEN STUCK IN THAT ROOM FOR A WEEK NOW AND NOW YOU'RE ACTING LIKE A VAMPIRE. THIS ISNT HEALTHY, ALICE." Mrs. Jones yelled right at her face. She was having trouble making her stand upright. Alice replied with a groan. Mrs. Jones took a deep breath, calming herself down before speaking again, "You know what you need, fresh air and sunshine. Your face is pale as snow and for goodness sake, you haven't bathed in a week, have you. Alice! You can't live like this. I won't be there to take care of you once you go to Hogwarts—oh dear; maybe I should owl the headmaster to watch over you once you get there,"

Alice simply groaned again.

"Sunshine. You need sunshine, young lady,"

"Nooooo-ooo…. Not the sun," she jerked her body away from her mother, crouching until she laid on the floor of papers, crawling into a ball.

"The sun," she scowled, "I don't know why I should bother basking my skin from that big ball of gas that you love so much, mother. In a billion years or so, that giant ball up at space that kids happily draw smiley faces on their terrible drawings would one day blow up into a supernova, killing us all. Not so happy is it, Martha!" Alice half-said, half-muttered, "I told her that it drawing a smiley face on the sun on her poor excuse for an art project was not only scientifically impossible and illogical but also lame and stupid. But she didn't listen,"

Mrs. Jones sighed heavily again like she's been doing it her whole life, "She was 6! There's nothing wrong with putting a smiley face on the sun, sweetie. We had this conversation before. Now stand up and eat some breakfast otherwise I'll ban you from the basement where you keep your lab equipment," Mrs. Jones threatened.

A look of horror washed over Alice's face for a second. She quickly got up to her feet. Alice couldn't afford being banned from the basement now. She was already done reading all the books, memorized every paged, figured out why the pictures moved and made necessary notes and corrections as well as developing detailed explanations and theories for some spells. Now, all that's left was testing it out on her lab equipment. She hadn't even examined Somali thoroughly yet.

"What do you want me to do, mom?" she moaned.

"Eat breakfast, feed Somali and please, for the love of all things fragrant, take a bath."

Alice obeyed. It was going to be a life-changing summer.